Students Demotivating Factors in the EFL classroom: The Case of Morocco

This study was conducted to investigate the problem of demotivation in English language learning (ELL) within the Moroccan context. To attain this objective, two instruments were adopted: a questionnaire and a writing test. The participants involved in this study were 201 baccalaureate students (second year) from six secondary schools, 84 were males and 117 were females. The data gathered was quantitatively analyzed through frequency distribution and percentages, Cross-tabulation, Chi-Square Tests, Independent Samples t-Test, in addition to the statistical significance which was set at the level of .05 (95%) for all statistical procedures. Six main findings were reported: (1) students positively perceived themselves in ELL; (2) students did not consider English language as a demotivating factor while learning it itself; (3) students were largely positive towards their teachers of English; (4) crowded classrooms were the main demotivators in learning environment among classmates, textbook of English, and classroom atmosphere; (5) generally, learning environment was the main demotivating factor in ELL; (6) as for gender, there was no significant difference between males and females in terms of the number of demotivating factors that they encountered. In the light of these findings, some pertinent implications were provided.